User talk:John J. Dennehy

Student microbe list?

I cannot get an image of an E. coli bacillus filling out the College Boards with a very small #2 pencil in each flagellum. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Example microbe

Hi John, I took the liberty to adapt the formatting a bit, to facilitate maintenance of these articles here at CZ. I filled the {{EZnotice}} fields with placeholders, please replace these with the correct information. If you have questions or need assistance with the formatting of the course pages, please let me know. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 15:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Please take a look at this forum thread and comment. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 12:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Please also take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/CZ:Biol_201:_General_Microbiology/EZnotice (e.g. Naegleria fowleri) and revert or modify this edit once you're done. --Daniel Mietchen 14:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI

I made this change to reflect the new account that she now uses. D. Matt Innis 19:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you've been a great help!John J. Dennehy 22:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What is a micriobe?

Hi John, good to see you trying this out on the class again. I'd be interested to know the feed back you are getting from the students. As an aside, what is the definition you use for a microbe? I notice that a few of your students are choosing mushrooms and one even has C. elegans. Is that pushing the threshold on the size side, or is that within the current usage? Chris Day 19:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I answered my own question. http://www.microbeworld.org/know/largest.aspx They're bigger than I thought. Chris Day 19:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Chris, I will probably create a page asking students to write a bit about their experience. It would be great to get some first hand feedback. As far as what is a microbe, definitions are often hard to pin down in biology. Biological systems often fall along continuums rather than discrete black/white categories. The classic definition is single-celled organisms not visible to the naked eye, but as you can see what that entails is quite expansive. I'm keeping a rather broad perspective, and fungi and C. elegans are acceptable. John J. Dennehy 22:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

please consider approving the affiliation between the Biology Workgroup and Microbiology subgroup

Apparently, I need an editor to say that the biology workgroup can be "affiliated" with the Microbiology subgroup which I have created. Please consider saying this is ok as a biology editor. I also created an Infectious Disease subgroup, which I think will have different goals compared to a microbiology subgroup, and you can consider approving that as well for the biology affiliation if you would like. Some people will argue it is redundant, I don't think it is. Tom Kelly 06:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category_talk:Biology_Affiliated_Subgroups

Of course! Where should I put my approval? The talk page? Also the vast majority of microbes are non pathogenic so it is entirely appropriate that there be a distinction between microbiology and infectious diseases. John J. Dennehy 13:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Given the number of elected pathogens, should the Politics workgroup sign off on Infectious Disease? :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 14:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

BW-related articles

Taking the defined articles from Select Agent Program/Agents, I tried to make them consistent with the new subgroups for microbiology and infectious disease. Tentativelly, I added the Military subgroup since these are organisms with declared biological warfare potential; I have not yet so changed the templates to include the additional organisms in CDC Bioterrorism Agents-Disease list, but will do so if there is consensus.

The Military assignment is a separate argument from Microbiology and Infectious Disease.

Would you consider it worth making it a priority, to assist your Eduzendium project, if I returned to build out biological weapon?

Howard C. Berkowitz 18:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

A brief tutorial into CZ

Hi John, please take a look at the following series of edits I made to explain the workings of CZ to one of your students.

1. preparation of article
2. create the article's metadata
3. create the article's talk page
4. start adding content
5. link your article to other articles via intrawiki links
6. put your article in context via the Related Articles subpage
7. clean up any earlier tries that did not work out
8. if the course is over, remove the EZ notice

I hope these may be useful for others.

Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 14:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC)Daniel

I'd add that metadata can be complex from the beginner; I and others would be happy to help set up that CZ overhead. Errors in metadata can have effects in other places in the Wiki, so if help is needed, a note on a user page, an email to constables@citizendium.org, etc., can get help. I've been creating some. As I mentioned, it may also be helpful for CZ regulars to add to Related Articles, as they may know what is already here, naming conventions, etc. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)